Oak Hill Cemetery began with the founding of the Mahoning Cemetery Association in 1852. In 1853, the Association purchased 16 acres of land from Dr. Henry Manning along Mill Street (today known as Oak Hill Avenue) near the Mahoning River and Spring Common Bridge. Youngstown Township purchased three adjacent acres from Manning in 1856 for burials from the old graveyard in the central village and to accommodate future public burials by Youngstown Township. The Township section was later merged into the Association and is part of the current 25 acres occupied by the Cemetery.

The Association planned a landscaped monument park for the remaining land in keeping with the new rural cemetery movement that swept across the nation in the mid-19th century. These new cemeteries were located away from villages and cities to serve as quiet burial grounds and for family gatherings and public recreational activities such as picnics and afternoon walks.

For more than a century, Oak Hill Cemetery reflected the affluence and cultural diversity of the Mahoning Valley. Business and industrial leaders commissioned soaring monuments and large ornate mausoleums for the burial plots. Monuments appeared on graves with names, languages, and religious symbols of Eastern and Southern European origin. The Valley’s diversity was also strongly represented – rich, poor, black, white, Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, non-believers, the famous, and the infamous all were present in graves with and without markers.

Oak Hill Cemetery continued to develop under the stewardship of the Association’s Board of Trustees. Local civil engineer Charles L. Mackey developed the site plan and platted the existing and available burial plots in 1905. Through the leadership of Henry Garlick, the Association held a successful fundraising campaign in the early 1920s. They hired renowned landscape architect Warren H. Manning to design and construct roads, perimeter walls, retaining walls, and the office/chapel building. He also developed the planting plan for trees and shrubs. The Association’s board and staff continue to maintain and improve Oak Hill Cemetery in honor of those buried there and to preserve this public treasure for future generations.